The present invention relates to portable medical monitoring devices, and more particularly, medical devices that use consumables in connection with testing or determining a physiological parameter of a subject. This application incorporates by reference the entire disclosures of application Ser. No. 09/975,097 (United States Patent Pub. No. 2003/0073884), titled MEDICAL MONITORING DEVICE AND SYSTEM, filed Oct. 11, 2001, application Ser. No. 60/562,877, titled MEDICAL MONITORING SYSTEM, filed Apr. 16, 2004, and application Ser. No. 60/493, 904, titled PERSONAL HEALTH MANAGEMENT DEVICE, METHOD AND SYSTEM, filed Jul. 7, 2003.
Many diabetics use glucose monitoring devices to assist in controlling their condition. Glucose monitoring devices typically use glucose monitoring strips, on which a blood sample is placed, for testing the subject's blood glucose level. Self-monitoring is essential for controlling diabetes and preventing complications, such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, eye disease, foot problems that may lead to amputation, etc. The level of self-monitoring recommended varies between patients and the type of diabetes, which may be from once a day for type II diabetes to three times a day for type I diabetes. Accordingly, diabetics are periodically provided with test strips in quantities 30, 90, 120, etc., which are typically covered by health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Many diabetics, however, do not require as many test strips as provided and many simply do not follow the recommended level of self-monitoring, which in both instances results in an excess and correspondingly inefficient allocation of allocation of test strips. The inefficiency is compounded over the estimated millions of diabetics that use glucose monitoring devices.